Universal Gravitation
by Drones-of-Innocence
Summary: "I'm sorry Capcom, I'm sorry Mission Control. Tell my parents I love them. Over and out."


The silence was deafening. There was nothing, nothing at all except for the spots of light, too far away to make out. And even then, he was becoming blind to them. They must have meant something up close, but from so far away, they were reduced to meaninglessness.

 _The soft murmurs of the transmissions had been the only sound in the cabin. Quiet, technical conversations went on, too low for him to comprehend them, as he never bothered to listen anymore. But still, the meaningless words had provided some semblance comfort. The faint droning of men and women at home, up at all hours had become dimly familiar, even if they spoke about aerodynamics and computer science that went beyond his understanding. The condition of the computer's program, the status of the thermal protection system, and the effect of debris on the outer hull, anything that could possibly go wrong was being accounted for. He could have understood if it made a difference, but he'd learned to tune out the noise._

 _He had been gazing sleepily out his window, into the stark cosmos. Before him was history in the making, the sharp outline of Mars to his right. He remembered when Mars was nothing more than a big yellow star in the sky on a clear night, back when his fantasies ran wild and free. Back then, Mars was just a distant thought, a dream underlined by a reluctant understanding that it wouldn't happen within his lifetime. And still, he dreamed. As a kid, his bedroom wall was lined with poster after poster of the planets, his ceiling dotted with glow-in-the-dark galaxies. When he closed his eyes, he was up there, sleeping among the stars._

 _Blinking at the large, cratered expanse before him, he reckoned he finally caught up with his imagination._

 _"Jones. Jones, do you copy, over?"_

 _He had faintly recognized his name distantly in his thoughts, only to realize he wasn't dreaming. Jolting, he quickly reached to press flashing light on the communicator. "Yeah, Capcom, I'm here. I dozed off for a moment, over."_

 _There was a short pause, after he released the button. As he was staring up at nothing, the reply came with a faint warble of amusement. "How's it looking, over?"_

 _His eyes wandered to the red planet. "Beautiful, just beautiful. The pictures just can't compare to the real thing, over."_

 _He could hear the smile. "I can only imagine, Jones. Over."_

 _Falling quiet, he had wondered what Mars looked like from the shuttle's camera. He imagined a somewhat grainy, rose-tinted hue, with an overly saturated image that exaggerated the color of Mars to a blood orange. Perhaps there'd be some disruption in the signal, some static that would send Mission Control into a momentary panic to regain contact. It had been a cold reminder of how far away he truly was, alone. Kilometers upon kilometers, he'd heard the distance so many times. Numbers were easy to look at, but hard to truly comprehend._

 _The process of falling into Mars' orbit would begin in a few hours, and that would be the true test of NASA's past thirty years. It would be the first time a manned spacecraft would orbit Mars. The shuttle would use a technique called aerobraking, which would take advantage of the planet's own atmosphere to slow down and gradually fall in. The process would take roughly another six months, if all the previous probes were anything to go on. The best mission control could have given him was an estimate._

He was dizzy, but it wasn't because he was spinning. Consciousness rolled over him like a wave, like the oceans he would never touch. He wondered; what had be become now? Where he had once been the dreamer, perhaps he was the dream. A dream that failed instantly and forever ago, and it would take approximately three minutes for that information to reach earth. Light was the fastest messenger of them all, but it wasn't quite fast enough.

 _"Jones. We are detecting a slight disturbance, over."_

Perhaps those minutes had passed already, perhaps the light had opened their eyes.

 _"Capcom to Jones, there appears to be something wrong with the program, over."_

Some might see it as a great tragedy to learn from. Others likely saw it as millions of dollars in wasted technology.

 _"Jones, please respond, over."_

 _He felt like he'd been asleep for less than a minute when he jerked awake, only to realize Mars took up most of the window. He had stared, slack jawed for a moment, just trying to process the sheer detail he could see. With no special equipment, he make out craters and the volcanoes, seeing with his own eyes just how red it was. No image could accurately describe the planet, but he tried to imagine how he could portray it back home. Mars was the color of monarch butterflies and leaves in the fall, it was the color of the orange callas in his mom's garden. It was the color of the sodium street lights on rainy nights back home, back where he knew all the rules._

 _Figuring he must have been asleep for at least three hours, he remembered clumsily pressed the communicator. "Could you repeat that, over?"_

 _Immediately, Capcom came in. "Jones, the computer is not responding to our commands. You're going in too fast. Over."_

 _"What should I do?" he frowned, glancing around at the flashing lights warning of building heat. He pressed the keypad a few times. "It's not showing me anything wrong on my end, over."_

He was another tick on a list of many mistakes. Gazing at the distant, orange marble, he understood for the first time that he was very small. His miscalculation was one of many, and that was the way it was supposed to be. How would humanity make any progress otherwise? Even in failure, he served a purpose to better everyone. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good, even if it meant leaving behind everything he ever knew.

 _The next reply didn't come until after a long moment of hesitation, and it had worried him. "It appears to be a glitch of some sort due to some damage on the shuttle. You're going to have to do manual override to correct the trajectory." a heavy sigh made it through the speaker. "You'll have to listen very carefully to our exact calculations. One degree off and you'll either burn up in the atmosphere or go careening into space. Over."_

 _He remembered thinking it suddenly felt very warm in the cabin. With an unsteady hand, he had pressed the communicator. "Understood. Over."_

 _The buzzing chatter of the voices back at Mission Control seemed more excitable, then. He looked up once more to the window, where Mars gazed back at him with it's rusted brilliance. If he held up a hand, he felt like he could touch it._

He remembered, with fond tears stinging his eyes, when he was a boy, desperately trying to recreate the stars with LED lights in his room. Endless hours were spent tracing constellations and galaxies, trying to make his sky map as accurate as possible. His father had helped him build a telescope so powerful he could make out the craters on the moon in blinding clarity. On road trips out in the country, he always insisted stopping at night so he could have a chance to gaze up at the stars and pick out every one he knew. The light pollution in his city was too heavy for him to see the real ones, but Mars always managed to peek out through the urban gloom.

Now, he couldn't pick out any stars. He had never seen this sky. And yet he'd looked upon it all his life, with a three minute delay.

 _"Okay, Jones. You're going to have to turn right 2.363 degrees. Over."_

 _He let out a shaky sigh. "Copy that, over." he carefully gripped the joystick and started to tilt it ever so slightly. The monitor told him how far he was turning, and he could see the slight shift out his window._

 _Mission control began buzzing again once he hit 2.363 degrees, and he held steady. "Jones, you have turned just two degrees. Over."_

 _Frowning at the monitor, he tapped it. "Two? The computer says I turned 2.363. Over."_

 _A different voice took over for Capcom. "He did. He turned 2.363 degrees. The computer is steering it back to the original trajectory."_

 _"The program must still be online."_

 _"Jones did the proper procedure for manual override! Why is it online?"_

 _"The computer is not responding to his commands. The computer thinks it needs to stay its course."_

 _"But he followed our calculations exactly! Run the numbers again."_

 _At the flurry of conversations that tumbled over one another in increasing panic, Capcom came back on. "Jones, it's going to be okay. The computer has a glitch, all of us back here are working to fix it. Hang in there Jones. Over."_

It was cold. He had been told all his life how cold space was, but he never could truly understand until he was there himself. If he squinted, he could make out the stars that had eluded him before. He could make out colors he was certain the cones in his eyes weren't designed to process. The universe was beautiful, full of wishes and dreams. But it was a very cold and lonely place to be.

 _He waited for mission control while the computer steered him along._

 _"Commander Jones," a woman spoke up. "The computer is dead set on its course. It won't allow you or mission control to adjust it. It's responding to the debris that struck the outer jet."_

 _He pursed his lips. "You're about to shoot through Mars' atmosphere. The shuttle is too big and it's moving too fast to latch onto the gravitational pull. There's a very large chance the shuttle will burn up in the atmosphere before it can make it back out." Capcom explained. "There's nothing we can do. I'm sorry."_

 _Burying his face in his hands for just a moment, he swallowed down a thick lump in his throat. A drop of sweat fell on the control panel. "Is there anything I can do? Over," he rasped, even though he knew the answer._

 _"...No. Nothing." Capcom reluctantly let out. "Over."_

Fifty-five million kilometers away. Fifty-five million kilometers and he wouldn't be going home. He gasped weakly, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be walking up to the porch of his parent's house, where he imagined his mom was planting more orange callas. Perhaps his dad would be reading the news in his old rickety chair. The little brick house in the little cul-de-sac in the little city was too big for them now. He let out a choked sob at the image, the idea unbearably more painful than anything space had waiting for him. Who was going to tell his mom?

 _He struggled to breathe, and his voice wobbled as he pressed the communicator. "Understood. Over."_

 _The cabin suddenly felt too stifling. He wrestled off the seatbelts and held on to the arms of the chair so he didn't float away. He checked the screen for the distance from Mars and velocity he was heading towards it. All kinds of measurements were laid out for him in neat tables, telling him their information in bright green numbers. The numbers should have grounded him, but instead they made him feel further from earth than he really was. In an instant, he decided he didn't want to burn alive in the atmosphere._

 _Mission Control's buzz grew again once he opened a door. "Jones? Jones, what are you doing, over?" the worry was obvious in Capcom's voice._

 _He pressed on his earpiece. "If I'm going to die, Capcom, I don't want to go without trying to fix it."_

 _When all the people working Mission Control started yelling, he sighed with an empty grin._

 _"What does he mean? What's he doing?"_

 _"Fix it?"_

 _"Jones, stay in your seat! You're going to hit some debris in the next hundred kilometers."_

 _"Why is he up and about?"_

 _Capcom had to raise his voice to be heard over Mission Control. "What?! Jones, you might get pulled in by Mars!"_

 _He had pulled out the spacesuit, he struggled to fasten on the first layers. The cap and liquid cooling suit were difficult to put on. "I'm far enough away. I'll take the SAFER to launch myself away. I'll be fine." he reassured Capcom, adjusting the cap around his earpiece._

 _Mission Control had become incomprehensible, filled with people lecturing him about decision making and safety in space. He couldn't distinguish any of their voices and didn't bother to try. He fumbled with all the pads and slid on the gloves as quickly as he could. There were so many pieces to put together, but the metal bands were difficult to fasten in zero gravity. Still, he managed to wrestle on the pants and top, and finally put on the helmet._

 _The lectures had stopped, and had instead turned into pleas for him to respond. He slid the SAFER on his back and ignored the proximity alert for Mars' atmosphere._

 _"I'm here, Mission Control." he spoke with a resigned tone. "I'm just going to hop out and tinker with the jet."_

 _Before anyone could speak up again, Capcom came back on. "You sure about this, Jones?"_

He wondered how far along the shuttle had gotten. Had it burned up already? There wasn't a way for him to tell anymore. He hoped the shuttle made a pretty show of comets and shooting stars on Mars. Maybe they could get some images of it at home.

 _"I'm sorry, Capcom, I'm sorry Mission Control," his chest heaved, and he struggled to form words as he spun wildly out of control. "Tell my parents I love them. Over and out."_

His oxygen tank was running low, the notification in his helmet warned him. He had a little over three minutes left. Smiling wryly, he laughed with a fluttering breath, the irony making him feel ill.

The SAFER helped him slow down his spinning, but there was no way for him to completely stop it. So he spun in the middle of nothing and everything, watching his timer run out. He couldn't even see earth anymore, or at least, he couldn't recognize it. It probably wasn't distinguishable from the other stars. If he looked upon all of them, at some point he hoped he'd be looking at the earth. He had read somewhere that the desert was beautiful because somewhere, it hid a well. The stars were beautiful because somewhere, they hid a rose.

He looked down at the suit, at the emblem proudly smacked across his chest. Out here, it was meaningless. Out where no one could see him exactly as he was, he had lost all connection to his home. Even if his death supposedly meant more than just a light going out, what were the ripples in the water that he made? Did a bright future for the race really mean the mothers and fathers of those fallen in the cracks had to grieve alone? Did that mean he had to grieve alone for the future he allowed, but would never see?

Finding himself grateful for the timer, he tried to picture his mother's face. When it was too hard, his eyes screwed shut and he smacked his helmet trying to wipe his tears away.

There was less air, and his lungs struggled to take in what little was left. His vision was blurry now, wet and unfocused. His eyelids fluttered, wanting to close, but he fought. He fought to see earth one more time.

And suddenly, there was light.

He moved to shield his eyes at its brilliance, but it went past any shade to take away any darkness. Any darkness was banished from him, squandered and defeated to nonexistence. It burned in his eyes, for he had not seen such bright light in nearly a year. He had been away from the light for far too long. "Do not be afraid," the light told him gently, with a voice as smooth as silk.

The light hurt too much for him to want to understand. "I'm not afraid," he wheezed back, the light even invading all his senses. And he meant it; the light never drove him away. He thrived under it. His skin had gone pale from being deprived of his sun for so long. And still, it burned him. "I'm alone." his voice cracked, breaking him open and letting the light inside.

The light dimmed just slightly, enough for him to try and open his eyes. "No," it disagreed with him. "You are never alone."

Squinting at the figure before him, he saw a vague image of gold and white. As his eyes adjusted, he got a clearer and clearer picture of the being that shined. He could make out green eyes peering at him, alight with certainty and life. "What do you mean?" he asked, slowly adjusting and picking out more and more details. Two wings kept the figure aloft, and a gold halo was perched just above its head. He didn't think he'd ever seen such a flawless form in his life. Trying to move his arms towards the angel, he struggled to take a full breath, his lungs unable to take what little was left.

The figure smiled at him, and reached towards his face. The angel's hand went right through the glass visor of his helmet and rested on his cheek, his movements elegant and fluid. "Loneliness is impossible." he explained. "At every moment, there is a force at work, breathing new purpose into all living things. There is a gentle pull that binds us. Each of us are drawn together by this tiny, wonderful force, and it works all across the cosmos in its own mysterious way. Everything that happens is a result of this unique gravity, be it life or love. It draws everything in the universe together, but at the same time, it has to pull some things apart."

Nothing he said made sense. He wasn't sure how to respond. Smiling somewhat sadly, the angel continued at his silence. "That gentle pull brought you into existence, on nothing more than a whim. It made you who you are, carving you like the water carves a canyon. It leaves wonderful mark, but to do that, it had to take away the dust first. This force brought you here. And it brought me here with you." the angel smiled soothingly. "So you see, you are not alone."

He took in a shuddering breath, glancing once to the oxygen level. "I wouldn't call it ge-gentle." he rasped, and the angel laughed warmly. "Why did it take me here? Why did it bring you?" He looked upon the angel with absolute awe, trying desperately to understand.

The knowing smile the angel gave him was positively radiant. "You see, there?" he pointed off in the distance, and by following his hand, he could pick out a star. "That is your home. The future of your kind depended on your mission. Though it doesn't feel like you accomplished anything, just know that you are the first rain that washed through the plain. One day, a beautiful canyon will take form, all because you took the first step. Few of us get to be catalysts like you, as most of us are content with our place in the universe. Humanity has a wonderful future ahead, and you made it possible for them. You've served them well."

The star in the distance was so fuzzy, he could barely recognize it. He was quiet for a long time, his eyes wandering in and out of focus. The colors all seemed to bleed and swirl together, so far from him and so close to each other. He briefly saw an image of orange callas and newspapers in the dark. The light could only illuminate that which was so distant. His suit warned him with a soft noise that he only had a minute left.

He didn't feel like rain. He felt like dust, destined to wander forever. And if he was dust, then the angel must be the wind, gusting wild and free and taking him along with it. Though, he didn't resent the angel, or the wind for acting out their purpose. Instead, he just wished his own purpose allowed him to go home one more time. After all, he figured he was only human, catalyst or not. He suddenly wished that he had been content with his place when he was a child instead of dreaming of the stars. At least then, he wouldn't be so lost.

"Where am I going?" he asked quietly. "What happens now?"

The angel hushed him. "Save your breath, my love. It's time to go."

His lungs strained for air. The angel smiled and leaned towards him, pressing his lips to his forehead. The universe pulled him along, and his eyes started to close. He saw the LED lights, the glow in the dark stars that dotted his midnight walls. He saw his mother's colorful garden and his father's old chair. He saw the driveway and then the street, the small city and the state. He saw the continent and the earth before him, shrinking away out of his sight.

The angel shrouded him with his wings, embracing him as the tears froze on his cheeks. He looked with unseeing eyes upon the earth one last time. Just as he took one final, shuddering breath, the angel leaned in close to him to whisper in his ear.

"The dreamer always eventually becomes a dream." he said. "It was only a matter of time."

O~o~O


End file.
